Parting from the Four Attachments

Parting from the Four Attachments: A Commentary on Jetsyn Drakpa Gyaltsen's Song of Experience on Mind Training and the View
The spiritual masters of the Sakya tradition of Tibetan Buddhism today generously teach a wide variety of special methods for achieving enlightenment according to the systems of the Great Vehicle (Mahayana) and the Vajra Vehicle (Vajrayana). The treasured teachings of both traditions have been passed down for more than 1000 years from teacher to student without any interruption in the lineage. From among the treasure trove of Mahayana instructions of the Sakya school, the brief teaching known as Parting from the Four Attachments (Zhen pa bzhi bral) is traditionally considered to be an invaluable gem that summarizes the entire spiritual path in the form of a short oral instruction. This particular teaching is said to have a divine origin. When he was just twelve years old, the founder of the Sakya tradition, Sachen Kunga Nyingpo (1092-1158), received a concise and profound summation of the entire Mahayana teaching directly from the bodhisattva Manjushri. The bodhisattva's words were: "If you are attached to this life, you are not a person of Dharma. If you are attached to cyclic existence, you do not have renunciation. If you are attached to your own purpose, you do not have bodhicitta. If grasping arises, you do not have the view."
Each of Manjushri's four phrases point to an essential aspect of the spiritual path. To achieve enlightenment, a Buddhist practitioner must become free of the four attachments mentioned by the bodhisattva. Sachen Kunga Nyingpo taught these instructions orally to his son, Drakpa Gyaltsen (1147-1216), who first wrote down the teaching and composed an exceptionally elegant and profound explanation of the original lines in the form of a spiritual song expressing his own experience arisen from meditation. Drakpa Gyaltsen's nephew, Sakya Pandita (1182-1251), later wrote a summary of the teaching, and various other masters wrote more extensive and scholastic expositions in the following centuries. In the Sakya tradition, Parting from the Four Attachments is still today the essential teaching of Mind Training (Blo sbyong), especially valued for developing the altruistic motivation of attaining enlightenment in order to be able to truly benefit other living beings.

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